Lilas And The Dance Of Creation

“There is an old Sanskrit word, lila, which means…divine play, the play of creation, destruction, and re-creation of the cosmos”.

– Stephen Nachmanovitch

When I embarked on a journey into Rebirthing Breathwork, it was not a mere feat. The journey of connected breathing sessions took me through physical and emotional dramas. As I moved through them, I felt a greater sense of liberation and my consciousness was elevated. As I delved deeper I encountered spiritual lessons known as lilas (pronounced leelas). Similar to but not quite, to initiations.

I was fortunate to travel with Leonard Orr the discoverer of Rebirthing Breathwork. Rebirthing is also known as conscious connected breathing and was discovered by the grace of a spiritual lila. Unbeknownst to him at the time, it was transmitted to Leonard Orr by his guru Haidakhan Babaji.

Haidakhan Babaji was considered a Mahavatar, which is an incarnation of the God Shiva. He was not born of a woman. Most westerners would think this is absurd, but the manifestation of Gods in human form, is a well accepted phenomenon in the Hindu religion. He appeared in a cave at the foot of Kumaon Mount Kailash in Uttakharand, the womb of the Divine Mother. This cave has been holy for thousands of years.

Haidakhan Babaji appeared as a youth of 18 or 20, yet he displayed great wisdom and divine powers from the start. He ate almost nothing for months, but his energy was boundless. In September 1970, he climbed to the top of Mount Kailash, seated himself in a yogic pose and remained there for 45 days and nights, mediating most of the time, talking occasionally. Those that met him said that the energy coming from Babaji was beyond what the mind could understand and what the senses could perceive.

Photo left: the cave side of the ashram.

Photo right: Haidakhan Babaji meditating on Mount Kumaon Kailash

The cave is charged with the energy of the Divine Mother. When I visited it, I sat in it feeling completely held and supported by the Divine Mother. It seemed uncanny and was a truly nourishing experience. My words do not give it justice, so go and experience it for yourself.

When Leonard first met Babaji, Babaji asked him, “did you like the breathing technique I taught you?” Leonard consequently became a disciple of Babaji and spent time with him every year. Babaji selected people from across the world and all sections of society to come to his ashram, then put them through mental and spiritual tests, including lilas.

Lilas are a spiritual test which serve you with continuous experiences to test your inner peace. They reveal where you hold on to conditioning and beliefs, where you are stuck in certain patterned responses, or even project your expectations onto what you are experiencing. The deeper inner work is to sit with what is happening, hold space for it, and notice that it will pass. Once you recognise that all experiences are transient; including all emotions, reactions, judgements, projections, you enter into the stillness of truth.

Babaji liked to have fun with his devotees when he created lilas. A devotee told me about when he went for a walk with Babaji. They reached a wall and Babaji walked straight through it. The devotee banged on the wall shouting, “I can’t get through. How could this man walk through a wall?” What the mind thinks is impossible, is actually possible. If I hadn’t have had my own experience of a Divine lila I wouldn’t have believed the devotee.

There is a temple in Sariska national park Rajasthan, that I visited with Leonard. It hosts the samadhi of the immortal yogi Bhatrihari. Out of compassion Bhatrihari decided to do a public demonstration of immortal yoga. He was buried alive, and encased in cement. There are seven tombs still in tact. As I approached the tombs I could feel the immense energy coming from them.

I was elated after singing the evening aarti in the temple and ready to head back to our hotel I got into a jeep with Leonard and two friends. Bhatrihari appeared by the side of the jeep. One of his irises was brown and the other one was clear. I thought that was really odd, I’d never seen anyone with a clear iris before. I was transfixed on his gaze which seemed to last an eternity, my two friends also stared into his eyes at the same time. He then disappeared right in front of us. There were no buildings near by, that he could have escaped to. So I had to let go of my scientific, logical mind and laugh at it. My mind simply couldn’t fathom it, and I surrendered to a greater truth about perceiving the material world.

Photo: aarti at the Bhatrihari temple.

The gift of diving deeper with lilas, is that it gives you the opportunity to discover unexplored aspects of your personality, by being confronted with unexpected situations. What this actually means, is that a situation may be set up to trick or test you.

For instance, let’s say you loose your favourite ring or watch, you get anxious and search for it in all of the places you could possibly have put it. Days go by so you give up, it’s gone! So instead of obsessing about it, you simply let go of your attachment to it, because it really has gone. Then all of a sudden, it appears in your coat pocket, you looked there five times already. How could it be there? But there it is! The lesson is not so much how did it suddenly appear, but letting go of the attachment to it. Lilas help you grow and you get to really open your eyes and “see” what is going on around you – and in your life.

You can dance with the lila for a while, get upset and be pulled in to drama, or alternatively, review what is happening, see it for what it really is – detach, give thanks and step away. Seeing the truth about what or who triggers you, is a major part of the Breathwork journey. You realise that you make so many assumptions about other people, that simply aren’t true.

The whole Divine play, activity or lila is the dance of Shiva. All movements within the cosmos are His dance. We are all part of this Divine play and to adopt an attitude of playfulness is needed as we dance through creation. Isn’t life really about becoming more playful and creative? eventually loosening the grip of our serious mind.